Paradise, a Sequel to Influence over Me
by Light1
Summary: Dracula tries to protect his child from the mortals outside the castle but cannot tell the difference between protection and imprisonment


**Paradise **

**Sequel to Influence Over Me.**

Disclaimer: Castlevania belongs to konami not me. I am making £0.00 out of this fic, it is written purely because I have a burning need to create. Although I would like to own Alucard . . . then he'd be mine.

Rating: PG-13

Part: one of one

Setting: Pre SOTN

Authoress note: Dracula faces the consequences of a decision made about Adrian

**Paradise **

{Dracula}

They did not trust his judgment. They were fools as was he, for he allowed them to divert him from his own judgments. He had proven time and time again that his judgment was sound and time and time again he had allowed their sighs or batting eye lids to cause him to change his mind. He was weak, he would always know his choice was the right one and yet time and time again he allowed himself to be diverted. Each time he allowed the diversion something would go awry. But the calamities were always manageable, small in size and easy enough to rectify. Perhaps that was the reason he constantly allowed himself to be diverted, because he always believed that he would be able to fix anything that went wrong. He had been wrong in that assumption, very wrong and it had cost him more than he had ever wanted to pay for any single mistake. He had allowed Lisa to convince him to expose the mortal women she called companions to him. Of course they had already known Lisa had married him but there is apparently a very large difference between 'knowing' something and being faced with the reality of it. He had warned her that it was a bad idea, he had fought against her but she had twisted his arm and he had easily given in. The meeting itself had been slightly traumatic but over the following days he had begun to believe that awkward conversation was the biggest consequence of giving Lisa what she asked for. It wasn't.

The price he had paid for not following his own better judgement had been her life. He had been convinced to allow her to walk into a dangerous situation overconfident in his abilities and she had died as a result. He had not listened to his own instinct and the consequences had been catastrophic. It had happened for the last time. It would not happen again. He would not lose his child the same way he had lost his wife. Adrian had come to the castle after Lisa had died and there he had remained. He had grown as all boys do, slightly slower than a mortal child would have and once he reached physical maturity he stopped aging all together. He resembled his mother so much that sometimes it hurt Dracula to look at him. However the resemblance was not just physical, he sounded like Lisa, smelled like her and he seemed to share her mind. For the most part he was obedient, but there were odd moments when he would attempt a rebellion, these moments had always been snuffed out and rectified but they were becoming increasingly more often and this worried the vampire lord. The more he had to discipline the boy the more the boy distanced himself from him. Adrian stood before him now looking pathetic and stubborn and more like Lisa than he ever had before. The boy had been bugging him for weeks to be allowed to leave the castle, but each time he had held firm and said no. Each time the boy would blink at him with large grey eyes and pout, each time he would consider reneging on his decision and each time he would remember Lisa. He understood the boy's desire for freedom, to want to roam. Vampires were roamers by nature and those who did settle in one place always had a rather large territory. Adrian had ventured outside the castle walls before but only with him, never alone. He was desperate for independence, desperate to prove he could do things on his own, that he was not completely dependant, he was not useless. It hurt Dracula to hold him down when he so desperately wanted to be free but he could not lose him, he could not risk harm.

"But why?" Adrian asked for the thirty seventh time that night. Dracula sighed and looked up at his Childs' face. his eyes were literally glistening with unshed tears of frustration.

"Because I love you, I want you to be safe and it is not safe for you to go outside alone." Dracula said firmly

"You claim to love me yet you treat me like an animal." Adrian snapped, Dracula felt his eyes widen at the accusation. "You keep me caged here, only bringing me out to please yourself. I am not your son I am your dog!"

"You are a fool if you truly believe such things!" Dracula heard himself roar. he stood and with little thought grabbed his child. "You think you know enough to leave this place in safety but you are a fool."

"How am I supposed to learn anything locked up in here?" Adrian managed through the grip on his throat. Dracula sighed and loosened his grip. he would forget sometimes that his child was more delicate than he.

"You can learn all you need to know in this place." Dracula snapped, Adrian tenderly fingering his own throat where his fathers grip had been just on the wrong side of tight sighed.

"All I learn here is that I am a prisoner." He growled, Dracula threw his hands up in the air.

"They would kill you given half the chance!" he snarled "They killed your mother or have you forgotten that."

"How could I forget when you remind me of it every night!" Adrian answered. Both fell silent at those words, the silence lasted a little over a minuet and was deeply uncomfortable.

"So how can I let you go?" Dracula asked softly "I know you child, you would barrel into that village and you would not know when to fight and when to hide." He swallowed "You would not come home."

"You truly think I am an idiot." Adrian looked mournful and slumped away from his father only to look back and shake his head.

"I am no fool. I know imprisonment when I see it." And with that he walked out the door. Three nights later Adrian broke a window, flew over a wall and was gone.

**End **


End file.
